kickassfanfic reblogged
kickassfanfic reblogged
“In 1404, King Taejong fell from his horse during a hunting expedition. Embarrassed, looking to his left and right, he commanded, “Do not let the historian find out about this.” To his disappointment, the historian accompanying the hunting party included these words in the annals, in addition to a description of the king’s fall.“
LMFAOOOOOO rip to that guy
i thought maybe this was fake, but there’s even a citation!
Taejong Sillok Book 7. 5th year of King Taejong’s Reign (1404), February 8.
Happy 618th anniversary of the day King Taejong fell from his horse!
Apparently the recorders were really intense about this. We have a record of King Taejong complaining about a recorder who followed him on a hunt in disguise and another who eavesdropped on him behind a screen. No one was allowed to see the records, even the king (one king did and killed five men based on what was written there, after which they took greater care to ensure it would never happen again), and changing the content or disclosing it was a capital punishment. Even when there were rival political factions trying to influence the writers, they wrote down what was a revision and what wasn’t and kept an original version with no revisions in it.
They also made sure to back up their data. They made four copies of it, then when three copies were lost in the Imrim Wars they decided to make five more copies just in case. One copy was destroyed in a rebellion, another was partially damaged in an invasion, and Japan stole one copy during their occupation and moved it to Tokyo University, where it was mostly destroyed in the Kanto Earthquake (47 books remained and were returned to South Korea in 2006). Now the whole thing is digitized, free on the internet, and translated into modern Korean for all to see.
It took centuries of meticulous recorders, justifiably paranoid copiers, absolutely determined historians, and painstaking infrastructure for this joke to be possible. Happy 618th anniversary to the day King Taejong fell from his horse.
kickassfanfic reblogged
HERE’S THE THING THOUGH
I used to work for a call center and I was doing a political survey and I called this number that was randomly generated for me and the way our system worked was voice-activated so when the other person said hello you’d get connected to them, so I just launch right into my “Harvard University and NPR blah blah blah” thing and then there’s this long pause and I think the person’s hung up even though I didn’t hear a click
And then I hear “you shouldn’t be able to call this number.”
So I apologize and go into the preset spiel about because we aren’t selling anything, etc. etc. and the answer I get is
“No, I know that. What I mean is that it should be impossible for you to call this number, and I need to know how you got it.”
I explain that it’s randomly generated and I’m very sorry for bothering him, and go to hang up. And before I can click terminate, I hear:
“Ma’am, this is a matter of national security.”
I accidentally called the director of the FBI.
My job got investigated because a computer randomly spit out a number to the Pentagon.
kuroba101
This is my new favourite story.
When I was in college I got a job working for a company that manages major air-travel data. It was a temp gig working their out of date system while they moved over to a new one, since my knowing MS Dos apparently made me qualified.
There was no MS Dos involved. Instead, there was a proprietary type-based OS and an actually-uses-transistors refrigerator-sized computer with switches I had to trip at certain times during the night as I watched the data flow from six pm to six AM on Fridays and weekends. If things got stuck, I reset the server.
The company handled everything from low-end data (hotel and car reservations) to flight plans and tower information. I was weighed every time I came in to make sure it was me. Areas of the building had retina scanners on doors.
During training. they took us through all the procedures. Including the procedures for the red phone. There was, literally, a red phone on the shelf above my desk. “This is a holdover from the cold war.” They said. “It isn’t going to come up, but here’s the deal. In case of nuclear war or other nation-wide disaster, the phone will ring. Pick up the phone, state your name and station, and await instructions. Do whatever you are told.”
So my third night there, it’s around 2am and there’s a ringing sound.
I look up, slowly. The Red phone is ringing.
So I reach out, I pick up the phone. I give my name and station number. And I hear every station head in the building do the exact same. One after another, voices giving names and numbers. Then silence for the space of two breaths. Silence broken by…
“Uh… Is Shantavia there?”
It turns out that every toll free, 1-900 or priority number has a corresponding local number that it routs to at its actual destination. Some poor teenage girl was trying to dial a friend of hers, mixed up the numbers, and got the atomic attack alert line for a major air-travel corporation’s command center in the mid-west United States.
There’s another pause, and the guys over in the main data room are cracking up. The overnight site head is saying “I think you have the wrong number, ma’am.” and I’m standing there having faced the specter of nuclear annihilation before I was old enough to legally drink.
The red phone never rang again while I was there, so the people doing my training were only slightly wrong in their estimation of how often the doomsday phone would ring.
Every time I try to find this story, I end up having to search google with a variety of terms that I’m sure have gotten me flagged by some watchlist, so I’m reblogging it again where I swear I’ve reblogged it before.
But none of these stories even come close to the best one of them all; a wrong number is how the NORAD Santa Tracker got started.
Seriously, this is legit.
In December 1955, Sears decided to run a Santa hotline. Here’s the ad they posted.
Only problem is, they misprinted the number. And the number they printed? It went straight through to fucking NORAD. This was in the middle of the Cold War, when early warning radar was the only thing keeping nuclear annihilation at bay. NORAD was the front line.
And it wasn’t just any number at NORAD. Oh no no no.
Terri remembers her dad had two phones on his desk, including a red one. “Only a four-star general at the Pentagon and my dad had the number,” she says.
“This was the ‘50s, this was the Cold War, and he would have been the first one to know if there was an attack on the United States,” Rick says.
The red phone rang one day in December 1955, and Shoup answered it, Pam says. “And then there was a small voice that just asked, ‘Is this Santa Claus?’ ”
His children remember Shoup as straight-laced and disciplined, and he was annoyed and upset by the call and thought it was a joke — but then, Terri says, the little voice started crying.
“And Dad realized that it wasn’t a joke,” her sister says. “So he talked to him, ho-ho-ho’d and asked if he had been a good boy and, ‘May I talk to your mother?’ And the mother got on and said, ‘You haven’t seen the paper yet? There’s a phone number to call Santa. It’s in the Sears ad.’ Dad looked it up, and there it was, his red phone number. And they had children calling one after another, so he put a couple of airmen on the phones to act like Santa Claus.”
“It got to be a big joke at the command center. You know, ‘The old man’s really flipped his lid this time. We’re answering Santa calls,’ ” Terri says.
And then, it got better.
“The airmen had this big glass board with the United States on it and Canada, and when airplanes would come in they would track them,” Pam says.
“And Christmas Eve of 1955, when Dad walked in, there was a drawing of a sleigh with eight reindeer coming over the North Pole,” Rick says.
“Dad said, ‘What is that?’ They say, ‘Colonel, we’re sorry. We were just making a joke. Do you want us to take that down?’ Dad looked at it for a while, and next thing you know, Dad had called the radio station and had said, ‘This is the commander at the Combat Alert Center, and we have an unidentified flying object. Why, it looks like a sleigh.’ Well, the radio stations would call him like every hour and say, ‘Where’s Santa now?’ ” Terri says.
For real.
“And later in life he got letters from all over the world, people saying, ‘Thank you, Colonel,’ for having, you know, this sense of humor. And in his 90s, he would carry those letters around with him in a briefcase that had a lock on it like it was top-secret information,” she says. “You know, he was an important guy, but this is the thing he’s known for.”
“Yeah,” Rick [his son] says, “it’s probably the thing he was proudest of, too.”
So yeah. I think that might be the best wrong number of all time.
the-noble-scientist
No okay THAT is adorable and I’m queueing this for next December.
kickassfanfic reblogged
This is one of the funniest holiday cards I have ever seen.
this has been in my queue for an entire year
kickassfanfic reblogged
sheherlocked-deactivated2022083
“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year
sheherlocked
If this post persuades even one person to get a free library account and use it, my time on this hellsite will not have been spent in vain
Reblog and signal boost.
I went to the main county one today for the first time! It had a lovely play area for BabyTea, elevators for hauling him up and down, excellent books, and study BOOTHS like diner booths but with walls between them and theoretically not sticky. It’s pretty rad, will bw back on rainy days to entertain BabyTea and soak in that sweet relaxing book vibe.
Just your occasional reminder to support public libraries, especially if you have one that’s local!
kickassfanfic reblogged
I mean, also, as an adult, you tend to have more control over your surroundings.
If you’re the one buying your clothes and food, you don’t have to argue with someone about NO, REALLY, that shirt is a Bad Texture, or have someone berate you for not eating green beans. Or maybe you get grocery delivery so that you don’t have to deal with going into the store where you get overstimulated, when as a kid your parent just toted you along on a zillion errands until you had a meltdown. You have more power to take care of your needs and take a break if you’re getting overwhelmed.
kickassfanfic reblogged
SHOUTOUT TO THE MISS PERU 2018 CONTESTANTS FOR GIVING STATS ABOUT WOMEN’S ISSUES INSTEAD OF THEIR BODY MEASUREMENTS
geodude
AHHH PERÚ DID THAT!!!
kickassfanfic reblogged
Very important, critical job.
kickassfanfic reblogged
This one got me tearing up.
kickassfanfic reblogged
decayalectical-deactivated20221
its so bizzare that increased awareness about anxiety has led to “that makes me uncomfy/scared” being an injunction to stop someone else just going abt their life and not a realisation that these things are just feelings and sometimes our feelings are completely discordant with the level of danger were in. like “sometimes i feel threatened when im actually not” should be grounds to interrogate disgust etc not the other way arnd
kickassfanfic reblogged
Cancel hatred, bigotry, misogamy, stupidity by voting Democrat. Otherwise, these will have to fight for our freedoms for the rest of our lives.
It's only Cancel Culture if it comes from the Cancelle region of the white supremacist brain. Otherwise, it's just sparkling consequences.
kickassfanfic reblogged
kickassfanfic reblogged
no one should be bullied for being "cringe" or "weird" but im especially protective of young transmascs bc they get put through so much hell just existing and having interests. I never wanna see y'all tearing smth apart just because it's popular with transmasc kids and you have the need to make transmascs feel bad for existing. if you are a trans boy or a young transmasc it is your right to be as cringy and weird and transmasc as possible on purpose. ppl hate to see transmascs being happy with themselves and enjoying their lives + their transness!! make them mad be cringe be free be trans!!
kickassfanfic reblogged
Holy WHAT
no way can you predict how this is gonna end
This is NileRed. He has a YouTube channel if you want to see his content but don’t use Tiktok. On YouTube, he posts longer videos (like this one where he makes moonshine out of toilet paper), and he also has a second channel called NileBlue where he posts videos that are just as high quality as those on the main channel (mostly secondary content like cleaning up after main channel experiments but there’s also cool one-off NileBlue bits like the bismuth knife video).
Short videos like the one in this post can be found at NileRed Shorts. You may or may not have seen the short where he destroys a gummy bear with potassium chlorate circulating on Tumblr.
Forbidden bubble snack.
“wait hold on doesn’t that react violently with water”
“oh, that one wasn’t water. But that is!”
Worth the Wait
kickassfanfic reblogged
muppethole-deactivated20240312
had a dream last night where marbles were back en vogue and everyone carried their marbles around in cute little pouches that they'd clip onto their backpacks or purse straps or belt loops so they'd always have their marbles on them and your marbles were deeply personal objects that showcased your individual personality and people would get really passionate and proud of them and playing for keeps was a deeply serious and honor-bound affair and i played a game with an old man while waiting for a bus and he told me how he met his wife while playing in a for-keeps tournament and in a miracle shot he knocked out her most precious marble a brilliant sparkling green one with an inside like a geode and when he looked up he found she was crying at its loss and so right there on the spot he proposed to her so that she could divorce him and take it back in the divorce "but in the end," he told me, "she kept me and the marble" and i awoke teary and resentful to be ripped from a fleeting world that had found for itself such a small and beautiful peace
kickassfanfic reblogged
Unpopular opinion: not everything that makes you uncomfortable is bad. Sometimes discomfort means your worldview is being challenged. It’s okay to sit with discomfort and think about where it’s coming from.
This post is not about fandom. It’s not about fanfics. You can safely assume any post I make has nothing to do with fan anything.
Discomfort is not pain.